Rigid, hinged-lid packets of cigarettes are currently the most widely marketed, by being easy to produce and easy and practical to use, and by effectively protecting the cigarettes inside.
In addition to the above rigid, hinged-lid packets cigarettes, rigid slide-open packets have been proposed comprising two partly separable containers, one inserted inside the other. In other words, a rigid, slide-open packet of cigarettes comprises an inner container, which houses a foil-wrapped group of cigarettes and is housed inside an outer container to slide, with respect to the outer container, between a closed configuration, in which the inner container is inserted inside the outer container, and an open configuration, in which the inner container is partly extracted from the outer container.
A rigid, hinged-lid, slide-open packet cigarettes has also been proposed in which the outer container has a hinged lid, which rotates between a closed position and an open position closing and opening an open top end of the outer container. The outer container lid has a connecting tab connected at one end to the lid, and at the other end to the inner container, to ‘automatically’ rotate the lid (i.e. without the user having to touch the lid) as the inner container slides with respect to the outer container.
Some embodiments of rigid, hinged-lid, slide-open packets of cigarettes, however, have proved difficult to open the first time (i.e. the first time the inner container is slid out with respect to the outer container to rotate the lid into the open position), even to the extent of giving the user the impression the packet is somehow defective. The reason for this difficulty lies in the packing material the packet is made from initially resisting deformation along the hinge lines. That is, locally, the packing material is still substantially whole, and is only weakened locally (the mechanical bonds within the material are only broken or at any rate relaxed) when the packet is opened the first time.
To make first-time opening of the packet easier for the user, it has been proposed to open and close the newly completed packet of cigarettes at a processing station downstream from the last packing station. The packet is opened and closed automatically by a mechanical actuator at the processing station. The mechanical actuators used in known processing stations, however, have the drawback of handling the packet fairly roughly, thus possibly resulting in irreparable damage, and of being highly unreliable (i.e. guaranteeing no certainty of success of the operation).